The Final Strife

“Oh.” Anoor didn’t look surprised. “I think we should stop for tonight.”

“Why? What’s happened? Why won’t it move?” Sylah picked up the shoe; the rune looked faultless. Anoor evaded her stare and started packing up her notes. “It happens sometimes.”

“Will it happen to me? Can my bloodwerk just stop working?”

“You can exert your body, cause yourself to pass out from loss of blood. Or the runes can dry out over time, the blood crusting and fading. But if you put a supplementary protection, it shouldn’t fade for a mooncycle or longer.”

“But will it stop, like yours did?”

“No, I’ve not heard it happen to anyone else.” She disappeared into the privy, abruptly ending the conversation.

—

Sylah got ready for bed. For the last six years she had slept in whichever clothes she’d fallen asleep in. Now she had fine cotton to wear at night. Cotton, the currency of Jin-Noon. She and Lio had passed the fields when they traveled from Ood-Zaynib to Nar-Ruta. Like a fleece on the landscape, the cotton crocheted up sand dunes for leagues around, protected by the tidewind from sheer glass greenhouses so the cotton bolls weren’t swept away. It unnerved her, how soft and warm it was. She looked for blue blood in the tendrils of the hem. The blood of the plantation workers who had harvested the crop. Sylah couldn’t wait to see the fields burn when Jond became warden.

She was bursting for the privy, but Anoor had occupied the bathroom for a century, maybe more. Hopping from foot to foot, she walked over to the desk in the corner and began to open the drawers, partly to distract herself, partly to cause a mess. She dipped a pen in ink and practiced her signature on a scrap of paper. She’d never get over the freedom of writing. Tilting her head to the left, she surveyed her handiwork. It was getting better, she decided.

A familiar paper slipped under her fingers as she moved around the papers on the desk. The map. She’d almost forgotten it.

Anoor must have taken it when she had drugged her that first night. She came out of the privy and noticed where Sylah was sitting, all the drawers of her desk spilling open with its contents.

“What are you doing?”

“Just reclaiming what was stolen.” Sylah tapped the map on the desk.

Anoor looked sheepish. “I didn’t steal it. It’s right there, isn’t it?”

“So you borrowed my map then?”

“Exactly.”

“You can’t just steal things from people. It’s not your place to just come in and take anything you want from people’s lives.”

“What do you mean people’s lives? I took it out of your bag, after you tried to kill me, if I might remind you.” She had her teacher voice on.

“Whatever, just don’t take my stuff.” Sylah began to roll it up. “What’s this?” Notes slipped out from underneath it.

“Nothing.” Anoor came over and started to clear up the paper.

Sylah ripped it from her grasp.

“The Ending Fire…no known life…the founding wardens…what is this?”

“I did a bit of research.” Anoor looked down at her hands as she took the notes from Sylah for a second time.

“Why?”

“Where did you get this?” Anoor countered, pointing to the map.

“I found it. Doesn’t matter, though, it’s just some old junk.”

“Is it?”

Sylah’s gaze slipped to the top right corner.

“Where did you find it?”

Sylah didn’t answer for some time. “In the Dredge.”